Responsible, inclusive sports reporting for college journalism

Karissa Ho/File

What makes for a great sports story?

It depends on who you ask. A sports editor teacher might emphasize a strong lede and nut structure; a die-hard fan might be reading for deep statistical insight and analysis; a casual sports enthusiast might be intrigued by inspirational quotes from the players themselves.

In short, there’s no one answer for what makes for a great sports story, but they all share common elements: a strong command of the stats, deep insight into the game and an understanding that athletes are multifaceted, complex human beings. 

Stories that miss that last part are incomplete at best. Inclusive sports journalism embodies the understanding that athletes are more than just bodies on a field.  

Harm can often be exponentially reduced through minor edits in content and adjustments to language. Here’s how the sports department at The Daily Californian is working to produce accurate, sensitive and inclusive sports journalism.

Practicing sensitivity around discussions of body and size

Harmful and inaccurate portrayals of athletes and their bodies pervade sports journalism. While physicality might be central to sports, this doesn’t give sports journalists free license to discuss the body shape, size or weight of an athlete. Tired and inaccurate stereotypes characterize endurance athletes as lean and explosive athletes as bulked, and athletes that exist outside these conventions face unwarranted scrutiny. Changes in an athlete’s body composition are not newsworthy, but that doesn’t stop the media from clinging to these disrespectful and cheap storylines. These stories are even racialized and gendered — women and athletes of color disproportionately face dehumanization by sports media.

Of course, there are appropriate times to discuss body size and weight, but when practicing inclusive and responsible sports journalism, reporters should refrain from discussions of body shape and size. This guideline should be breached only when the detail is necessary for readers’ understanding of a game, not used as an easy embellishment for a story that lacks meaningful details. Regardless of sport, gender or race, discussions of body size and weight must always be handled with an abundance of sensitivity. 

Reworking possessive language involving coaches and athletes

Following reports of indescribable abuse suffered within the National Women’s Soccer League, sports journalists should reflect on how subtleties in language can reinforce dynamics of ownership and power between coaches and athletes. While the dismantling of power dynamics between coach and player might be best left to trained sports psychologists, journalists can minimize this perceived power imbalance through tweaks in language and content. Possessive language describing coaches and athletes should be reworked. 

For example, writing “coach Neil McGuire’s defensive line” or “Justin Wilcox’s starting line-up” is inaccurate and could be subtly harmful. The players don’t actually belong to the coaches, just as no human being belongs to any other. 

Avoiding harmful metaphors and analogies

Colin Kaepernick’s Netflix series “Colin in Black & White” begins with an unflinching scene comparing NFL training camps to auctions of enslaved individuals. By drawing this parallel, the former NFL quarterback speaks volumes on the dehumanization and commodification of athletes. This dehumanization exists across all playing fields, from the NFL to high school sports squads.

As sports journalists, shifting this paradigm might include hitting backspace on some overused and inhumane metaphors and analogies. In particular, metaphors comparing players to animals, livestock or beasts should be avoided. It is imperative that sports reporters use language that depicts athletes as people, not bodies on a field.

Sports stories aren’t usually given too much weight in discussions involving journalistic ethics or newsroom diversity. The capacity for harm just doesn’t seem as present as it is in news stories on crime or politics. But while the stakes might be lower sometimes in sports, harm is still possible. When sports journalists are doing their due diligence, they’re working to reduce this harm in any way possible and honor the humanity of the game.

The Daily Californian

Many people say if you choose a job you love you will never work a day in your life. For Monica McConkey, that is the case.

Through a contract with the Minnesota Centers of Agriculture Excellence, which connects farmers to resources, McConkey and her colleague Ted Matthews provide counseling services in the state of Minnesota for farmers, their family members and children.

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture provides a farm and rural health hotline number, email and text option “FARMSTRESS,” which can connect clients to Matthews or McConkey. Whether they meet farmers by phone, on Zoom meetings or in person, the confidential meeting is free.

With the prevalent effects of climate change and high intense weather events such as drought, many farmers are experiencing high levels of stress and anxiety about the future of their farms.

The effects of drought have caused many dairy farmers to sell their cows because they cannot afford them.

“When we look at weather related events and impacts for farmers, a top stressor is that it’s outside of their control,” McConkey said. “They go into every spring with faith that the seeds will be successful.”

Topics farmers often bring up in counseling relate to worries around transitioning the farm to the next generation, relationship issues or conflicts in the home or on the farm. They go on to say that trauma from accidents or injuries on the farm, or loss of a loved one to suicide are also brougt up often.

With her knowledge of farm life and 25 years in the practice, McConkey has the ability to help mental health providers understand how a farmer’s issues may differ from a typical client.

Growing up on a fifth-generation farm in Bejou, Minnesota makes McConkey take her work close to heart.

“When the contract was presented to me, it felt like coming home,” McConkey said.

After receiving her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Southeastern University and a master’s degree in counseling from Regent University, McConkey has spent her whole career working in the rural behavioral health community.

In 2016, Eyes on the Horizon Consulting was formed out of her passion to provide services to underserved rural communities.

Everyone McConkey had the chance to connect with all shared the commonality of a farm.

“I work with people who are like my own family, have similar struggles, the same passion for land and agriculture,” she said. “I can help them through their struggles because I understand what it’s like.”

As a certified trainer for the “Question Persuade and Refer” industry approach, she works alongside communities and organizations with suicide prevention projects.

She has also partnered with the University of Minnesota Extension on a publication about strategies to build resilience and alleviate rural community stress.

McConkey has also expanded her work outside of Minnesota, visiting Wisconsin and North Dakota to speak about farm stress, rural mental health and other topics at conferences. McConkey will travel to Las Vegas in December to discuss relationships on the ranch with the Working Ranch Magazine publication.

When asked about her hopes for the future, she wants people to view mental health on the same level as physical health.

“There shouldn’t be a stigma anymore, society needs to value them as equal and legitimate health issues,” she said.

Campus must be proactive in addressing legacies of white supremacy

Bridget Long/Staff

Campus has once again talked a big game but failed to follow through. Despite taking important strides in 2020 and early 2021 by unnaming a number of campus buildings honoring men who symbolized exclusion, UC Berkeley featured research by some of these same individuals in a Doe Library exhibit called “Celebrating 50 years of Excellence: South & Southeast Asia Scholarship and Stewardship at Berkeley, 1970-2020.” If UC Berkeley wants to be a trailblazer in academic diversity, it must attend to the less obvious, yet still vital, components of ensuring all students feel safe on campus.

This is the second time campus has belittled the South and Southeast Asian community in the past several months. In March, UC Berkeley attempted to dissolve the South/Southeast Asia Library and replace it with an administrative office. Only in response to outcries by the campus community did UC Berkeley agree to preserve the space.

This is a pattern — UC Berkeley makes large gestures but dismisses smaller spaces on campus and the important details that would fulfill its promises.

Campus may have unnamed buildings honoring these men, but the gesture is superficial considering David Barrows’ and Alfred Kroeber’s work was commemorated in the Doe Library exhibit several months later. Hallway plaques in the now Social Sciences Building have not been changed — they still read “Barrows.” Both scholars represent legacies of white supremacy, anti-Pilipinx sentiment, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity and xenophobia.

The exhibit, intended to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the South/Southeast Asia Library and the department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, was opened to the public in early March 2020. Barrows Hall was unnamed in November 2020 and Kroeber in January 2021. It took a month of students lobbying for campus to finally make an amendment. It acknowledged that several of the scholars whose work was on display played a role in perpetuating American colonialism and racist perspectives of people of color in the Philippines and the United States.

To add insult to injury, campus did not suitably consult South and Southeast Asian students in the construction of the addendum. It also failed to acknowledge or apologize for implicitly respecting the scholars’ racist actions. In response to student protest, campus took down components of the exhibit a few days earlier than the display was scheduled to be taken down Oct. 31.

History cannot be erased. Only by openly admitting and reflecting on past mistakes can we move forward to create the campus students have desperately been demanding for years.

Unnaming buildings on campus is essential, but students and faculty should understand why these steps, while symbolic, are important. Educational plaques explaining the decision and apologies for the impact honoring these names had on the community should be included in the renaming process.

UC Berkeley must be proactive instead of waiting to react until students call for change. Administrators met with members of the campus community to discuss the exhibit and how it can address the matter, reduce harm and promote healing. This shows that campus has the right intentions, but once again it feels like too little too late.

At an event last week held by students against the Doe Library exhibit, protesters chanted “Berkeley … Do better!” We echo this call.

Editorials represent the majority opinion of the editorial board as written by the fall 2021 opinion editor, Emily Hom.

The Daily Californian

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As Colorado State University students head to the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also called COP26, climate change is on the minds of many here on campus. CSU boasts its renowned sustainability, but the actions of one university feel infinitesimally small when the scope of global climate change affects, well, the entire globe.

ARE Update finds drought will not drastically affect CA farmers’ revenue

Joseph Casey/Senior Staff

UC Berkeley agricultural specialists and others collaborated on an Agricultural and Resource Economics, or ARE, Update special issue, highlighting California farms and ranches will likely generate normal revenue in 2021 despite the ongoing drought.

The ARE Update special issue was created to help stakeholders explain how California can adapt to the drought, according to Ellen Bruno, campus assistant cooperative extension specialist. She added that understanding how to adapt could help reduce the costs of future periods of scarcity to farmers and consumers.

John Abatzoglou, UC Merced professor of climatology, compared this drought to ones of the past, linking climate change with the ongoing drought.

“By late summer of 2021, half of California found itself in an exceptional drought,” Abatzoglou wrote in the issue. “Increasing atmospheric thirst, together with climate change, has arguably supercharged recent droughts, including California’s ongoing drought.”

Bruno noted in an email people tend to believe droughts will lead to an increase in the price of food. However, she explained price changes and effects on consumers are usually small, as the prices for crops that fail to produce are primarily are determined by “market forces outside of California.” Additionally, she noted that many of the reduced crops are used for feeding livestock rather than humans.

Daniel Sumner, UC Davis professor, and his co-authors of the special issue found farmers have adapted to drought-imposed scarcities and prevented significant financial losses by adjusting crop acreage, leaving some land unplanted and reallocating water to high-payoff crops, among other measures.

“Farmers adjust land use – shifting away from field crops like rice, alfalfa hay, and corn silage,” Bruno said in an email. “Sumner et al. explain that prices for these commodities tend to rise in response to a reduction in output, which offsets the losses to farmers.”

Although farmers have been quick to adapt, Bruno said in the email increasing water storage by recharging groundwater aquifers could improve California’s ability to respond to droughts.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded the drought emergency to all parts of California on Oct. 19, stating in a press release Californians need to “redouble” efforts to save water.

“It’s great for our collective awareness about this scarce resource,” Bruno said in the email, referring to this expansion. “Hopefully it encourages all of us to be less wasteful in our water use. While the Governor’s drought emergency is more focused on household conservation, and the Special Issue focuses on agricultural water use, it is important that both user types use water efficiently.”

Contact Diego Lapayese-Calderón at dlapayesecalderon@dailycal.org, and follow him on Twitter at @diego_lapayese.

The Daily Californian

The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi will install its 356th chapter at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, Florida, today, Nov. 8, 2021. Founded in 1897 at the University of Maine, Phi Kappa Phi is the nation’s oldest and most selective all-discipline collegiate honor society recognizing academic excellence.

The installation of the Florida Gulf Coast chapter comes after a thorough petitioning process, site visit and approval from the Society’s board of directors. To be eligible, an institution must be a regionally accredited four-year college or university with an established reputation of excellence and an expressed commitment to upholding the values of the Society.

“The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi is pleased to welcome Florida Gulf Coast University to its community of scholars. The academic leadership at FGCU is enthusiastic about the value a chapter will bring to their campus and is committed to its success. We look forward to initiating their first round of students this spring,” said acting Society Executive Director Traci Navarre.

Officers elected by the chartering group to serve the newly installed chapter include President Dr. Minh Nguyen, President-Elect Dr. Senthil Balaji Girimurugan, Treasurer Dr. Jan-Martijn Meij, Secretary Dr. Linda Colding, Awards and Grants Officer Dr. Terumi Rafferty-Osaki and Public Relations and Marketing Officer Jen Jordan.

Phi Kappa Phi was founded in 1897 when Marcus L. Urann had a desire to create a different kind of honor society—one that recognized excellence in all academic disciplines. Today, the Society has chapters on more than 325 select campuses in the United States, its territories and the Philippines and inducts approximately 25,000 new members each year. Membership is by invitation only to the top 7.5 percent of juniors and the top 10 percent of seniors and graduate students, along with faculty, professional staff and alumni who have achieved scholarly distinction.

About Phi Kappa Phi
Founded in 1897, Phi Kappa Phi is the nation’s oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines. Phi Kappa Phi inducts approximately 25,000 students, faculty, professional staff and alumni annually. The Society has chapters on more than 325 select colleges and universities in the United States, its territories and the Philippines. Membership is by invitation only to the top 10 percent of seniors and graduate students and 7.5 percent of juniors. Faculty, professional staff and alumni who have achieved scholarly distinction also qualify. The Society’s mission is “To recognize and promote academic excellence in all fields of higher education and engage the community of scholars in service to others.” For more information, visit www.PhiKappaPhi.org.

Media Contact
Alyssa Papa
Communications Director
apapa@phikappaphi.org
(225) 923-7777

An overview of the Astroworld Festival crowd during Lil Baby’s performance, hours before Travis Scott took the stage. | Donna Keeya/The Cougar

When you work in journalism you often face the paradox of objectively reporting the history you are living through while you are experiencing it. From hurricanes, to pandemics to tragedies, you often have to dissociate your own feelings from incidents to report on them without bias.

For many media personnel, the most recent example of this is the Astroworld Festival tragedy. Three editorial board members and I were working at Travis Scott’s highly anticipated festival, including Friday night’s fatal show in a crowd with many fellow UH students.

While I’m beyond grateful and privileged to say that none of my coworkers or I experienced any injuries, we’re now, along with tens of thousands of concert attendees, in the midst of processing the mass casualty event that was Astroworld 2021. 

At Scott’s headlining performance, I would say I was in the back to the middle portion of the left side of the crowd. And with an audience of around 50,000 people attending, my range of vision didn’t extend much past directly in front of me. Now retrospectively understanding the luck that came with my location, I was very fortunate to have not experienced extreme shoving or tramplings.

When I came home a little past midnight on Saturday morning, I was completely unaware of the tragedy I had experienced the night before. It wasn’t until 6 a.m. the next morning when I received a phone call from my older sister asking if I was OK that I realized what had happened. 

Immediately after, I fell down a rabbit hole of media coverage, gathering all the information I possibly could find from the night before. By 8 a.m. I had began working on The Cougar’s coverage of the fatal event.

Personally, it has taken me hours to register the magnitude of that night, and still don’t feel like I’m all the way there. While I can disassociate my feelings while covering events, I will never feel desensitized by what happened that night.

As a huge live music fan, it’s so disheartening to process how people died innocently listening to their favorite artists. As someone who grew up 15 minutes from the suburb Travis Scott is from and grew up watching the Kardashians and listening to Drake, it’s so surreal to think about the nightmare that was that concert. This devastation hit close to home to so many people in so many different ways and will continue to impact thousands of people for the foreseeable future.

A day that started out as my first time working a major music festival turned out to be one of the deadliest concerts in U.S. history. But with all that being said, I feel so incredibly fortunate to have been able to safely come out. I feel so incredibly guilty for being unaware of the catastrophe as it happened in the moment. I feel so somber that people lost their lives at an event they just wanted to consume the art at. And mostly, I feel so incredibly heartbroken for those who lost their loved ones at this event.

In the aftermath, I’m still struggling to find the balance of overconsuming media coverage of the concert and protecting my feelings from being overexposed to the tragedy I lived through.

Everyone lives in their own reality, and it will take different amounts of time and methods to digest what happened at Astroworld. To everyone who was there, how much or little you’re feeling is valid, and I hope you are able to heal from the experience.

To everyone personally impacted by the deaths, I am so sorry for your loss and so sorry you are experiencing this. No one should attend a music festival and not make it home. 

Through and through, everyone please take care.

editor@thedailycougar.com

—
“Letter from the Editor: Processing the Astroworld tragedy” was originally posted on The Cougar

On Saturday, Nov. 7, the University of Utah men’s swimming and dive team competed in their dual meet against the University of Nevada, Las Vegas at the Buchanan Natatorium. The Utes lost with a final score of 123.50-174.50, which ended their streak of seven straight wins against the UNLV rebels. Saturday was the Utes’ first meet since Oct. 22, where they lost a hard fought meet against No. 2 ranked California.

The Utes started the dual meet slow, finishing third in the 200 medley and the 1000 free. However, sophomore Marko Kovacic was able to continue his strong start to the season for the Utes. Kovacic won the first event for Utah, with a 1:39:01 time for the 200 free. After beating out Olympian Robin Hanson of California a couple weeks ago, Kovacic was able to keep his momentum.

In the 100 back event, Parker McOmber and Andrei Ungur were able to finish second and third with times of 49.54 and 49.70 respectively. While Utah wasn’t able to win the event, it was still a strong showing.

The strong individual performances continued for the Utes, as junior Noah Carlson finished second in the 200 butterfly with a time of 1:53:37. Fifth year senior Santiago Contreras, who had a huge victory in the 100 free against Cal, finished the 50 free with a season best time of 20.69, securing a third place finish.

Three of the next four events saw finishes of second place for the Utes. Senior Ben Waterman was then able to capture the Utes’ second swimming victory of the day in the 100 butterfly with a finishing time of 48.33. Contreras also earned a second place finish in the event with a time of 48.91.

While the swimming team for the Utes wasn’t able to keep up with a very strong UNLV Rebels’ team, the diving team had a very strong showing, as they earned victories in both of the dives.

In his season debut, senior Tony Chen led the Utes to diving victories in both the 1m and the 3m dives with scores of 401.15 and 331.50, respectively. Luke McDivitt, an All-American and former Pac-12 champion, also made his season debut as he was able to earn second in both the 1m and 3m dives with scores of 373.95 and 311.35, respectively. Chen and McDivitt’s strong performances helped lift the Utes in the diving portion of the dual meet.

Freshman Ben Smyth also had a strong showing in his second meet of the season, earning third in the 3m with his season-high score of 292.10. Junior Jenner Pennock also was able to earn third place in the 1m with a score of 313.90.

With finishes of first, second and third in both of the diving events, the Utes had a dominant effort, pleasing head diving coach Richard Marschner.

“We competed really well today and couldn’t be happier with how things went in the dive well,” Marschner told Utah Athletics. “This is a really hard pool to dive at and we came in, made no excuses and competed like champs today.”

Despite the diving team’s dominant performance and the swimming team’s strong individual efforts, the Utes still lost the dual meet to the Rebels, with a final score of 123.50 to UNLV’s 174.5.

The Utes’ swimming team doesn’t compete again until Dec. 3-5, when they’ll be in Princeton, New Jersey for the Princeton Invitational. The diving team has less of a break, as they will compete next in the Texas Diving Invitational in Austin, Texas from Nov. 18-20. 

Swimming and diving head coach Joe Dykstra has a season goal of finishing in the top twenty in the nation, and the Utes will look toward making progress on that goal in the coming months.

m.lepore@dailyutahchroincle.com

@lepore_max

The post Utah Men’s Swim and Dive Loses Winning Streak against UNLV appeared first on The Daily Utah Chronicle.

Despite four losses in the season, USC had a chance to flip the script Saturday at Arizona State. The Trojans battled but fell 31-16 against the Sun Devils in Tempe, Ariz., securing their sixth five-loss season since 2010. 

Following Stanford’s defeat against Utah Friday, Saturday’s matchup between Arizona State and USC became particularly impactful, as a loss would officially cause the Trojans elimination from the Pac-12 South. 

It was a close matchup, with USC keeping the game within single digits for most of the contest.

After going scoreless in the first quarter, a running touchdown by freshman quarterback Jaxson Dart and a field goal from sophomore placekicker Parker Lewis in the second quarter brought the Trojans ahead by 3 points. 

Then, Arizona State redshirt senior running back Rashaad White torched the USC defense for a 47 yard touchdown, putting the Sun Devils ahead by a touchdown going into halftime. Arizona State never looked back as White finished with a season-high 202 rushing yards, including 35 yards receiving. 

The Trojan defense allowed two more touchdowns by White in the fourth quarter, putting the game well out of reach.

One of the more controversial personnel decisions was starting both Dart and junior quarterback Kedon Slovis last week against Arizona. After practice Thursday, interim Head Coach Donte Williams said he was confident that they should continue to have a two-quarterback rotation. 

“Every position here is a competition… that is how it should be at USC,” said Williams in an interview with USC Athletics before the game. “It is more Arizona State’s problem than it is ours.”

However, after the Arizona State game, Williams switched his tone. 

“I can’t tell you that it’s the right decision. I can’t tell you it’s the wrong decision,” he said in the postgame press conference.

Dart and Slovis rotated every couple drives on Saturday, besides a few exceptions, but could not find a rhythm. Each quarterback threw an interception and the Trojans were 5-16 on third downs. 

The Trojans are fifth best in the nation at red zone offense and it continued in Tempe, Ariz. USC had trouble finishing drives, often relying on Lewis to get any points on the board. 

Lewis was 3-4 on field goals and 1-1 on extra points, scoring 10 out of 16 USC points. 

Offensive struggles became evident since junior wide receiver Drake London broke his ankle last week against Arizona. London’s 1,084 receiving yards this season is more than the next three top USC wide receivers combined. Redshirt sophomore wide receiver Tahj Washington stepped up in London’s absence, leading the Trojans with nine receptions and 78 receiving yards. 

Defensively, USC struggled against the run, yielding an average 6.7 yards per carry for a total of 282 yards on the ground.

“The biggest problem is the line of scrimmage,” Williams said, “When you don’t [make tackles] against a team that has multiple guys that can run the ball, you’re going to have issues.”

The Trojan defense is currently ranked 9th in the Pac-12.

Redshirt freshman safety Xavion Alford was one of the few bright spots for the Trojan defense. Alford’s two interceptions kept the USC offense on the field.

“I trusted my instinct, trusted the film, trusted my preparation,” said Alford after the game Saturday. “[I trusted] everything we go over at practice and made a play on the ball.”

The Trojans will travel to UC Berkeley to face the Golden Bears Saturday.

The post USC plays two quarterbacks in 31-16 loss to Arizona State appeared first on Daily Trojan.